Emmanuel Worship Center Seventh-day Adventist Church

09/01/2026

“As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness…” 2 Peter 1:3, NKJV

Every day I get a scripture and a video explaining the scripture. Today, there was a man in a wheelchair with cerebral palsy. I had a hard time understanding him. If I can be honest, I got agitated. I wondered why they would put someone struggling to communicate on a public platform. Not because his testimony was unimportant. I wondered how he felt.

Then I kept listening.

He shared that this scripture was for people suffering or living through trauma. He was born with cerebral palsy and had an abusive father. Yet trauma was not the center of his message. He focused our attention on God’s divine power and who receives it. It convicted me. I almost missed the message because I was distracted by the messenger. Peter says God’s divine power has given us “all things that pertain to life and godliness.” He does not promise life without suffering. He promises divine resources for the life we are living.

We often measure God’s power by what He removes. But divine power is also revealed in what God supplies while something remains. Strength when life stays difficult. Peace when questions remain. Faith when we cannot see what comes next. Grace for another morning. Peter says this power has been given “to us.” The wounded. The grieving. The struggling. Those carrying experiences they never chose.

EWC, I saw a man struggling to communicate. God showed me a man demonstrating the scripture. His wheelchair did not cancel divine power. Cerebral palsy did not cancel divine power. Childhood trauma did not cancel divine power. Neither does what we are facing. Our limitation does not limit God’s power. Our suffering does not disqualify us from God’s power.

I almost missed the Word because of the messenger. God sometimes puts His Word in someone we must listen to differently. We may not have everything you prayed for. God has not left us powerless. We have divine power for the life in front of us.

Sometimes, that is the miracle.

Pastor Ontkean J. Maynard, MDiv.

08/31/2026

Join Us At EWC This Sabbath.

08/24/2026

For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Galatians 5:14

EWC family, love is a theme throughout Scripture. We quote verses about love, sing songs about love, and walk in love. Yet we leave love on the surface. Galatians 5:14 forces us to ask a deeper question: What does it truly mean to love our neighbors as we love ourselves?

This question matters because many people do not know how to love themselves. I work in a mental health hospital and meet patients who struggle to see value in themselves. They are carrying the trauma of what someone said or did to them. Cruel words became a voice. Abuse became a mirror. Abandonment became evidence that they were unwanted. They live from a position of feeling less than, unworthy, and unlovable.

We will not minimize their pain. What happened was wrong. The wound was real. Yet the wound does not have the right to determine their worth.

I wrestle with this text because God knew what would happen to us. God sits above time, works within time, and stands outside of time at the same time. He saw every chapter before we lived. Still, He commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves. God is not asking us to love others from an empty place. He invites us to receive His love first.

During a difficult season in my marriage, my mentor told me, “It is impossible to love your wife outside of God because God is love.” I learned that I could not give my wife what I refused to receive from God.

Before I do the horizontal work of loving my neighbor, I must do the vertical work of receiving God’s love. I must accept that God loves me in spite of me. While I was still a sinner, Christ died for me. There is nothing I will do to make God love me more. There is nothing I have done that makes God love me less. The Cross is evidence of God’s love for me.

Loving yourself does not mean worshiping yourself. It means agreeing with God about your worth. It means refusing to call worthless what God calls valuable. When His love heals how you see yourself, His love changes how you see your neighbor.

Receive His love. Then give from the overflow.

From The Desk of:
Pastor Ontkean J. Maynard

08/20/2026

WHAT’S IN YOUR WALLET?

We spend a lot of time checking what we have. Money. Resources. Connections. Opportunities. But Ephesians 3:20–21 reminds us that our greatest resource is not what we hold in our hands. It is the power of God working within us.

Join Pastor Ontkean J. Maynard on Sabbath, August 22, 2026, at: Emmanuel Worship Center
8145 Richmond Highway
Alexandria, VA 22309

Home of Renewal, Restoration and Revival.

08/20/2026

WHAT’S IN YOUR WALLET?

We spend a lot of time checking what we have. Money. Resources. Connections. Opportunities. But Ephesians 3:20–21 reminds us that our greatest resource is not what we hold in our hands. It is the power of God working within us.

Join Pastor Ontkean J. Maynard on Sabbath, August 22, 2026, as the Guard This House series continues with a message entitled WHAT’S IN YOUR WALLET?

Come ready to examine what you have been carrying, what you have been trusting, and whether you have underestimated what God placed inside you.

Emmanuel Worship Center
8145 Richmond Highway
Alexandria, VA 22309

Home of Renewal, Restoration and Revival.

08/17/2026

08/17/2026

I had daddy issues.

My father left when I was two years old. Throughout all my years on this earth, I can count the number of times I’ve seen my father.

That kind of absence does something to you.

When the person who helped give you life chooses not to participate in your life, you learn to live without expecting them. You stop waiting for the phone to ring. You learn to act like their absence doesn’t bother you.

But then I read Ephesians 4:2:
“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”

This scripture hits differently because of that last word: LOVE.

Paul doesn’t say bear with people because they deserve it. He doesn’t say be patient because they apologized. He says bear with one another in love.

That’s where this gets personal.

Love is easy when people show up, call, and reciprocate. But what do you do when the person you’re called to love is connected to one of your deepest wounds?

Ephesians 4:2 reminds me that Christian love is not pretending the wound never happened. Love doesn’t require me to rewrite my history to protect somebody else’s image.

My father left.
I felt the absence.
I missed what should have been there.

But I’m learning: I don’t have to deny the wound to refuse to become the wound. I can acknowledge what happened without allowing it to determine who I become.

That’s humility.
That’s gentleness.
That’s patience.
That’s bearing with someone in love.

If we’re not careful, yesterday’s abandonment becomes today’s anger, and today’s anger becomes tomorrow’s inheritance.

I refuse to pass down what hurt me.

My children don’t have to inherit my daddy issues. My marriage doesn’t have to inherit them. My ministry doesn’t have to inherit them.

I can break the cycle.

I can love without pretending.
I can forgive without forgetting the lesson.
I can heal without receiving the apology I deserved.

Ephesians 4:2 is teaching me that love isn’t always a feeling. Sometimes love is deciding:

What you did to me will not become what I do to somebody else.

Pastor Ontkean J. Maynard, MDiv
Emmanuel Worship Center
Home of Renewal, Restoration and Revival

08/13/2026

CASH THE CHECK! 💵✝️

What if you’ve been asking God for something He has already deposited through Jesus?

This Sabbath, Pastor Ontkean Maynard continues the GUARD THIS HOUSE series with CASH THE CHECK!

📖 2 Corinthians 5:21
Stop living beneath what Christ already secured.

📍 Emmanuel Worship Center
8145 Richmond Highway
Alexandria, VA 22309

The promise is yours. Cash the check!

08/13/2026

CASH THE CHECK! 💵✝️

📖 2 Corinthians 5:21
Stop living beneath what Christ already secured.

📍 Emmanuel Worship Center
8145 Richmond Highway
Alexandria, VA 22309

The promise is yours. Cash the check!